Chrismer, Ellen. "Lodian Travels to Return to his Russian German Roots." Lodi News-Sentinel, 4 March 1997.

Lodian Hiller Goehring,
72, has been in touch with his Russian German heritage his whole
life.

Although he was born and reared in Lodi, as the son of German
immigrants of Russia, Goehring spoke the Schwabian German dialect
before he spoke English. He attended the German Baptist Church,
now the First Baptist on Central Ave.

His family, mother, Pauline and father, Jacob, patronized German-speaking
merchants in town. And his father would regale him with stories
about his upbringing in the pre-revolutionary Russian town of Neudorf.

Later, as Goehring pursued careers as a farmer and a truck driver,
he took less interest in his heritage.

"I was an American, and I sort of got away from that," he said.

But in retirement, Goehring's interest was piqued again after
he learned of a former Lodi school-mate, and fellow Russian German,
who was now teaching German in Germany.

"Six years ago, I thought maybe I'd go visit Germany," he said.
"But then I thought, Why don't I just go to Russia?"'

And the timing was just right. With the break-up of the Soviet
Union and the opening of its former republics' borders, the poor
nations were hungry for tourism.

So in June 1996, after several years of genealogical research,
Hiller and his cousin Victor Goehring, a Lodi attorney, joined a
group of Russian Germans from across the United States to visit
the former Soviet Union. Leading the tour was Michael Miller, a
North Dakota State University bibliographer studying Germans from
Russian. The participants traveled to cities and small country villages
of Moldava and the Ukraine.

The highlights and video coverage of the trip will be presented
Saturday at a Lodi meeting of American Society of Germans from Russia.

The Goehrings, whose grandfathers were brothers, visited the country
village of Neudorf (renamed Karamanovo) in what is now Moldava.
The Goehrings did not have any relatives left in the town, for most
Russian Germans who did not immigrate to America were exiled to
the coal mines of Siberia during Stalin's reign, or, under less
stringent Soviet government control, moved back to Germany.

The Goehrings were, however, finally able to add an image to the
stories their fathers, who left Russia for America in 1911, had
told them about the village of about 1,000 people. Jacob Goehring
and Victor's father, Philip, had spoken of the beautiful Lutheran
church that was the centerpiece of the town.

"The church was their entertainment and their pastime," said Hiller
Goehring.

The cousins found that the church's steeple had been knocked off
by the Russian army after the 1917 revolution. The building is now
used to store hay in this primitive agricultural area.

The people of the region were poor but generous, the Goehrings
found. One of Hiller's greatest thrills on the trip was staying
in the home of an elderly woman, Martha Kammerer, in Gluckstal (now
Glinnoje), Moldava. Upon their leaving, she presented the Goehrings
with an embroidered handkerchief made by her grandmother in the
1850s.

"I think she was just so happy that we spoke her language," Hiller
said.

But perhaps the biggest highlight of his trip to study his Russian
German heritage occurred in Germany itself when he met his second
cousin, Jacob Goehring, whose existence he discovered through his
research.

After several decades of working in the coal mines, Jacob had
moved with his family to Rastatt, Germany.

"It was such a thrill because when we were growing up, we were
told that these people who had stayed behind in Russia were dead,
all dead," Hiller said.

The second cousins' meeting in Rastatt was emotional.

"These people couldn't believe that we had been raised half way
around the world from each other," he said. "It brings tears to
my eyes."

The genealogical odyssey had also given Hiller a greater appreciation
of his own country.

"When I came home from the trip, I was a better American," he
said.

Reprinted with permission of the Lodi News-Sentinel

Permission
to use any images from the GRHC website may be requested
by contacting Michael
M. Miller